


For Old Times Sake, Doctor

by briannarose



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Blood and Injury, Dark thirteen, Doctor Who: Academy Era, Drowning, Enemies, F/F, F/M, Flashbacks, Gallifrey, Heartbreak, Hurt/Comfort, Hypnotism, Love/Hate, Murder, Thoschei, Violence, evil thirteen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:01:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22565965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/briannarose/pseuds/briannarose
Summary: "Why are you doing this, Koschei?""Because I've missed you, my dear."A tale of loss and hope, anger and forgiveness, wisdom and violence. When the very core of your being is taken away from you, weaponised, who is there to break your fall?
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 31
Kudos: 162





	1. An Ever-growing Vengeance

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome! This is a multichapter fic, and will get much juicier from here on out. This first chapter is just a taste of what's coming. Enjoy, my loves.

“What’s going on, Doc?” Graham asked with a sigh, “you haven’t been yourself for weeks now. I know you’re gonna deny it but we’ve all noticed, and I think it’s something to do with that Master bloke.”

Carrying two cups of tea after wiping what he’d spilled on the kitchen counter, he sat down at the old wooden table. The Tardis kitchen was next to the Doctor’s study, she did that on purpose, needed the convenience of getting 3am snacks while working on her gadgets. It was cosy, nothing like the console room, you’d hardly recognise you were on a time and space-ship. The feeling was more like a 1960s country home kitchen, earthy and calming.

He placed the mugs on the table, and the Doctor slowly reached for hers, a little drearily. She wasn’t at her happiest, and the low energy was beginning to rub off on everyone. Yaz and Ryan were making food, just pizza.

Most days they stayed overnight in the Tardis the Doctor would be taking them to some intergalactic restaurant where the chefs were genetically modified dinosaurs, or something equally as strange and brilliant. But tonight, they wanted to take the night off, be with her and lift her spirits a little in the safety and comfort of the Tardis. But that was hard, when you had no idea what was wrong with her.

“I’m fine. How many times do I have to say it?” she groaned, sipping the hot tea as she slumped back in her chair.

“Doctor… You can say you’re fine as many times as you want but we know you aren’t. Usually you’re all peace, love, oh look a rainbow! And recently you’ve been a bit… Well, mardy…” Yaz chimed in, “we just want the normal you back that’s all. It's scary when you’ve been more reckless, you had no problem with killing all of a sudden when we met the Skithra, and that isn’t… It’s not you. Something's happened, and it's the master isn't it?”

The Doctor scoffed, rolling her eyes. She’d had an attitude for days, weeks, tension building so quickly they all felt it might suffocate them.

“It’s true, Doctor,” Ryan said, usually he would just hold his tongue, “we’re just worried that’s all. We're your family, we care about you.”

The Doctor put her mug down, no grace or carefulness at all, some spilling over the top. The sound made them flinch, any harder and it would have probably broken.

“I don’t keep you all around to interrogate me. You don’t _know_ me. Don’t act like you do. I don’t appreciate being called mardy, Yasmin, in my own home too. If you don’t want my company, then leave. Just say the word and I’ll drop you home in Sheffield, back where you came from, like you never left.”

Everyone fell silent for a moment, it was frustrating that she couldn’t see what they saw, how much she had changed, all so suddenly. And all of it since the Master revealed himself, that was their assumption.

“Why do you keep us around, then?” Yaz pressed, Ryan looked at her with his brows raised and slight grimace, almost cringing to himself. Conflict with the Doctor, he realised, wasn’t something he was prepared for nor particularly wanted to be faced with. It never occurred to him just how little he really knew this woman, and that was worrying. He knew her and Yaz were a little closer though, so he hoped that helped.

The Doctor and Yaz were friends, or so they’d always said so defensively, but it was common knowledge around here by now that they were a little more affectionate with each other than the Doctor was with most people.

Yaz got no answer, so she continued to push, “come on Doctor, cause it took you a year and a half to tell us what planet you’re from. But you hang about on Earth, with us. So why do you ‘keep us around’? We’re not toys, and as you said yourself, surely _you_ could go home if it’s so irritating that we care about you.”

The Doctor couldn’t even look at any of them, kept her gaze fixed on the table, tapping her foot subconsciously as raw emotion bubbled inside her.

“Don’t. Don’t you dare.” was all she could manage to say, she didn’t know if she wanted to scream, to throw something, or just cry.

“Doc, what’s so bad you can’t tell us?” Graham asked, he was older, calmer, hoped he could get through to her a little more with that.

“You aren’t entitled to know my life,” she retorted rudely, finally looking at him when she spoke to him and it took him back, the life and joy was gone from her eyes, and having spent time with the Doctor he knew, it was genuinely terrifying. That hope and childlike curiosity has been replaced with anger, heartbreak, exhaustion.

“We trust you with our lives, Doc. I think in a way we should know more about you, you’ve always dodged questions.” He sighed, sipping his tea.

The Doctor got up out of her chair, running a hand through her blonde hair, she had a lot of love for them all and didn’t want to hurt them, but she knew if she stuck around, she probably would say something she wouldn’t forgive herself for.

“If I dodge questions so much maybe just take the hint. Don’t ask. You’re pissing me off, the lot of you. Leave me alone, it's not hard.”

Yaz couldn’t help but roll her eyes.

“Just not like you to let a man like the Master walk into your life and rock your shit, Doctor. Didn’t realise he got you this hurt.” She said, in a way Yasmin _wanted_ to provoke her, just to get it all out, see her explode. Perhaps, to her detriment, but in the end it meant everything could finally be laid out. She wouldn’t say it, but it was something she’d picked up being an officer, knowing the right things to say to wind someone up enough and get an explosive truth out of them.

The Doctor almost snarled, stopped there in her tracks as she looked at Yaz coldly.

“You have no. idea.-“ her tone was almost a growl. Ryan didn’t want to say anything, nor even move incase it made her angrier, but Graham being Graham tried to intervene.

“Awright, come on you nutters, everyone go have some space we’re all just tired,” Graham interrupted her, hand on her shoulder trying to bring her back down, but she shrugged him off rougly. He and Ryan exchanged worried, knowing glances.

“Upset? If someone you loved walked into your life whenever they wanted just to hurt you how would you feel? You forgive them, every time they disappoint you, because you love them and you always will. You think they want better for themselves, they convince you that they do. You save your planet from the destruction of war after carrying the burden of loneliness in this universe for so long. And then, they destroy everything. They take your home planet and fucking burn it and its people to the ground. How the _fuck_ would you feel?”

Silence. No one knew what to say really. She left and the door slammed behind her, and still, all words were lost. Graham exhaled hard, finger tapping his lips, unsure of what to do. Being the peacemaker he tried to be, he wasn't happy with himself for not doing more.

His mug started to move on the table, a shaking which grew more violent, so he grabbed it and tried to sip it, get rid of some so it wasn’t as likely to spill everywhere. Still, his white shirt ended up stained with the brew. The room itself did the same thing, same earthquake like shaking, and the trio had to hold onto the closest surface to them.

“What the hell is going on?” Ryan asked, reaching for the counter but misstepped and fell onto the floor. While he’d been working on his coordination, he felt it was a never-ending battle.

Suddenly, it all came to a stop, and with Yaz’s help he got back to his feet.

“I think she’s landed us somewhere,” she said, “probably home. You can both come for tea if you want, think we all need it. There was no need for such awful flying, she's just pissed off and grumpy.”

The door burst open again, the Doctor stood there in the doorway looking dishevelled. She was wearing her sweater, tucked into her trousers, but no suspenders or coat, no boots either, she always wandered the Tardis interior in her slippers, made it a rule that they did too. He slippers were cats, mind you, so no matter how threatening a gaze she may have had, a glance down at her feet ruined the image she was trying to convey.

“Where are we, Doc?” Graham asked, concern in his expression as he tried to read her face, “bumpy ride, spilled my bloody cuppa.”

“I’ll show you. You wanted to know and I'll show you.”

There was a smell of smoke coming through the door, and just to be on the safe side Ryan had to check the pizza in the oven, worried it might have been burning but he was right, it was definitely coming through the door outside. One by one they followed the Doctor through to the console room, where the double doors were open wide for them to see.

Hesitantly, they headed towards it, Yaz was first.

She wasn’t sure what she was looking at, what looked to be a once established planet, now covered in ashes, broken glass, smoke and flames. Buildings with such elegant shape were blackened, burnt from the inside out and only a mere shell remained of them. It brought tears to their eyes, to see such devastation. 

“This… Was this your home, Doctor? This is Gallifrey?” she asked, turning to look at her. The Doctor was equally as teary eyed, feeling her hearts breaking all over again, and all just to prove a point.

“This _was_ Gallifrey.”

“I’m sorry, Doctor.” Yaz said, wholeheartedly.

“Mm. I’m taking you all home, anyway. There’s something I need to do.” Find _him_. “And if you don’t see me again just know I’m grateful to have spent my days with you, fam. You all need to stay out of my way, out of _this_.”

"He did this, didn't he, the Master?" Graham asked, his voice cracking. They'd seen planets that were dead, many a time, but something about this was different. It was _her_ planet, for one; the kindest woman they had ever met, and she'd suffered with such a heart wrenching truth, alone.

But despite that, there was a vengeance growing in her. The hope she was losing was a void slowly being filled by anger and the need to make her old friend suffer like she was. 

What she didn't realise, was the vulnerability that growing darkness left her with.


	2. Red Waters of Lethe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Memories are crashing around the Doctor, repressed cruelties of her youth. She'd buried the murder that had taken place at her very hands, but it inevitably crawls to the forefront of her mind when she is led back to a place she'd hoped to never see again.

Alone, hands on the console supporting her body weight, the Doctor breathed slowly and shakily. She was holding back tears, something she’d been fighting too often recently, and she feared that the longer she bottled these emotions up, the harder she was going to break when it happened. But she could deal with that when the time came, at least that’s what she had convinced herself.

He didn’t have to be stood in the room with her, she was always haunted by _him._ Always. He was nowhere and everywhere at once, every corner of her mind shadowed by him in such a complex way, it sent her spinning if she focused on it for too long.

“Where are you,” she said out loud, her voice cracking. She was beyond dishevelled, having tugged and ruffled at her hair so much it was a mess, and her eyes were burning with tears that she refused to let free.

“Fuck, where the _hell_ are you, Koschei,” she lifted a hand shakily to wipe away the lone tear as quickly as it had appeared, she was too embarrassed to cry even in front of herself. _Laugh hard,_ she had told herself before regenerating, _run fast, be kind._ But that was becoming the most impossible promise to keep.

The Tardis jolted, throwing her abruptly against the floor with a thud, followed by a groan. The whirring of the ship as it landed brought momentary comfort to the Timelord, who quickly scrambled to her feet. Narrowing her eyes, she read the exposition of Gallifreyan writing on the console screens, trying to decipher where she was.

She swallowed hard and blinked away tears, jaw clenched as she stumbled backward away from the controls like they’d burned her. She hadn’t thought about this place in a long time, and wished it had stayed that way. Hurt, rage, even waves of fondness, every emotion it brought back upon her was so overwhelming.

She stood there for a moment, unable to do anything, the need to collect herself was much too great.

It took her a good five minutes before she could bring herself to open the door, to look outside. She couldn’t see _him_ , though. She’d found his coordinates; she had been sure of that, normally this was fool proof. So, he was hiding somewhere, she realised. Waiting for her to lower her guard before he pounced.

She stayed still for a while, just internalising her surroundings. This was Gallifrey, but a part of it she’d avoided like a plague. Somewhere that hurt to think about, let alone stand before.

The Academy. The place she’d lost her best friend and first love, the _reason_ she had lost him. Her eyes were blurred with tears but at almost everything she looked at, she could see them. The pair of them, when they were so young and naïve and lost. Lost in the universe, lost in each other.

She saw that night they’d snuck out, on her invitation, while everyone else slept. They hadn’t gone far, just in case, but they managed to clumsily climb out of their dormitory window and settle on the red pasture below it. They’d laid there, staring at the stars and into each other’s eyes, sharing fond kisses and deeply repressed emotions. Her lover had cried into her chest, about the drumming in his head and the relentless bullying he was forced to withstand every day at the hands of the other students.

Rage seethed in her chest as it all flooded back, they’d ruined him, she remembered. Those other students, who were old enough to know better, had taken a struggling, mentally fragile young man and broken him down until there was nothing left of the person she once knew.

The person she was in love with, with the entirety of both her hearts, they had ripped from her mercilessly. And now, here she was, chasing after a killer. The same eyes that once looked at her with adoration, with love and lust and devotion, now seemed to only look at her with hatred and anger. And it broke her hearts.

“You brought me on purpose, you-“ she began, her breathing heavy despite being glued to the spot. She fell to her knees as she exploded in tears, punching the ground to release her rage. Her knuckled ended up bloodied and bruised, and yet she couldn’t feel it, the emotional agony was much too overpowering.

_He tricked me into coming here. He’s not waiting, he wanted me to hurt. He wanted me to remember…_

Her head was pounding, her thoughts were like a tsunami and she was helpless, drowning. She looked at the blood on her hands, was transported back to that day she had snapped on her way out of the lecture hall, pinned down a boy called Torvic and beat him bloody with her fists. She remembered the way he’d yelled at Koschei, humiliated him in front of the whole class, and it boiled her blood.

_“We all knew Koschei was going to get the worst mark on the test. Too busy trying to get in bed with Theta, and that is why he’ll never be a worthy Timelord, just a waste of space and air-“_

_“Shut up” The Doctor had cut him off, “shut your mouth before I make you regret it.”_

_Torvic had only laughed at that, pushing his chest out as he stepped closer toward her._

_“Will you, Theta? Because last time I remember you both almost ended up in tears.”_

_That’s all it had taken for his legs to be swept from under him by her own, clambering on top of him on the ground gracelessly as she gave strike after strike, consumed by her outrage._

_She had eventually been dragged away by Koschei once Torvic had fought back, leaving her with a bloody nose and split lip. He’d cleaned her up in his dorm, telling her she needed to learn to control her temper and just walk away. The irony made the Doctor grimace now._

_“Just ignore him, its okay” echoed in her head now, as further repressed memories began to choke her._

_The red fields by Lethe, her hand in the Master’s own as they walked the bank of the river, cracking jokes with one another. It was always quiet here, and they enjoyed spending their evenings together, listening to the trickling of the water and watching the clouds pass over their heads. She remembered how they’d talked about travelling the stars one day, together, for eternity. How he’d told her for the first time how much he loved her, how he’d grabbed her face and kissed her hard._

_It all went sour, all too fast._

_Torvic seemed to come out of nowhere when he’d jumped Koschei, going further with his torment every time. Before either of them knew what was going on, Koschei’s head was being forced under the water by Torvics hand. Instinct had kicked in, her heart was racing and she felt sick as she’d taken the knife from her pocket and stabbed Torvic in the back at least twenty times before he collapsed into the lake._

_“This is your own doing, you bastard,” she’d seethed as she watched him die, revelled in the fear that was in his eyes. Blood was pouring from his wounds as he gasped, struggling to take in air and she remembered the way she laughed, how she’d spat on him._

_“And no one will ever know. No one will be able to mourn you, no one will know what happened to you. We’ll think of you, Torvic, when we’re travelling the stars. You won’t ever have the chance. This is revenge.”_

_Koschei finished the job while she spoke her cruelty, cutting his throat and delighting in the blood that surged from his neck._

_“One of us was always meant to die. I thought it was me, I tried to take my own life,” Koschei said with a bitter chuckle, “but how glad I am to see you take my place.”_

_She remembered the rush of it, how satisfied she’d felt. How the adrenaline made her feel invincible._

_They’d burned Torvic’s body that night, and no one but them knew what happened. No one knew their dirty little secret._

_No one knew that the spot they frequented from then on, where they’d fucked under the stars, where they’d talked about marriage, about children, no one knew it was the same spot in which they’d burned Torvic’s body._

“Stop! Get out of my fucking head!” she cried, tears streaming down her face. Wiping them away smeared blood and dirt on her cheeks, but that was the least of her worries.

She found herself walking towards the river Lethe, her hearts pounding so hard in her chest she felt she might pass out. The person she was now, was nothing like the man she’d been when she killed Torvic that night. When she’d killed him, and enjoyed it. Smirked in class when he was announced missing. It was twisted. She understood that now.

“Shit,” she mumbled when she almost tripped up, a pin in the ground had caught the front of her boot. She crouched down, frown on her face as her tears cleared, concentrating on something else seemed to help temporarily. A piece of paper had been pinned to the ground there, untouched by the flames and destruction the same way the academy had been.

It had been placed there, recently. Very recently.

 _“My dear Theta,”_ it read, and she winced at the name, _“I needed you to feel the pain, the anger that I have felt for so long. I needed you to remember who we were, who you are. Now, come find me. AG7-M-1G-D5GZ-Alpha-S.”_

Carelessly tearing it from the pin, she clung to the piece of paper like it was her only hope left in the universe. And in a way, it was.

She felt so dizzy and high on adrenaline that she didn’t even realise she was running for a moment, flying straight through the doors of the Tardis and setting the decryption for the given coordinates.

“No,” she said to herself defiantly, “no. No. This is… It can’t be, he didn’t-“

It felt like a hand was intruding into her chest, crushing her hearts. It was hard not to draw the immediate conclusion that she did when she landed, a feeling of pure dread consuming her whole being.

Stepping out of the Tardis doors and seeing that infuriating, manic grin was complete hell. Worse, were the creatures he was surrounded by, that seemed from what she could tell to be obedient to him.

“Hello, Doctor, my love. I'm sure you're familiar, but... Welcome to Skaro."


	3. Gods of War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A confrontation on Skaro turns bloody as the Doctor finds the Master has created a deadly alliance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading thus far! Means the world to me. If you can spare a moment to leave kudos or even a comment, its wildly appreciated my loves. Mwah!

He stood there, grinning maniacally. His beam seemed to only grow wider when he saw the shock and confusion that radiated from his oldest enemy and even older friend.

“You’re insane,” she seethed, eyes twitching to hold back tears of rage.

“Tell me something I don’t know, dear.”

Not often did something shock or scare her after all the things she’d done and seen in her excruciatingly long lifetime, but something about this was so unsettling, and she felt almost dizzy as she looked around at the Daleks that seemed obedient to him.

“Doc- _tooor_ ,” the familiar droning voice of a Dalek said, making her flinch visibly, and all to the Master’s sick enjoyment, “you _will_ o-beeey.”

Rage flared up in her chest, it made her feel sick to her core. She knew he was awful, but still he always seemed to surprise her.

“Obey what? Obey _whom_?” She spat back, trying to stand her ground as the Master strode slowly towards her, an eerie calmness about him. She wanted to step back, move away and keep the distance but she felt she looked weak and dishevelled enough without making it worse.

His face now wasn’t so readable, she found herself staring intently just trying to figure out his next move. He was unpredictable, and even more so, unhinged.

“Obey _me_ , Theta,” he said lowly, and she bitterly laughed, rolling her eyes. Her gaze couldn’t settle on him though, too occupied with looking around at the hundreds if not thousands of Daleks that stood like a dormant army, ready to pounce on his order. And if they did, she was done for, it put her in a cold sweat.

He reached slowly for her face, curled fingers settling under her chin and gently bringing her gaze towards him. Such tenderness in his touch was infuriating.

“Why are we here, why haven’t they killed you? You’re a timelord.” she interrogated, the fear in her eyes wasn’t something she could hide too well, especially not from him. But she knew the answer, really, and it broke her heart. She knew what he’d done, he had told her in a message after she first saw Gallifrey in all its ruins.

What she hadn’t anticipated, and now she kicked herself for it, was the way he’d gone about it. The route he’d taken to manipulate and use against her people their own trauma. No better way, must there have been, to truly crush their souls and hope in the moments before they died.

He didn’t say anything, he was examining her face with a pitiful expression. It was humiliating, the way he wiped at the tear-streaked dirt with his thumb, hand on her cheek.

“Koschei,” she said, trying to grip his attention, “Koschei, please… Please tell me I’m wrong, this isn’t- You didn’t…”

“Oh, but I did,” he spoke proudly, hands dropping to his sides, “I told you, I had to make them pay. And what better way, than killing them the way they should have burned all along. The Daleks. Theta-”

“Don’t you fucking call me that, you bastard,” she spat back, stumbling away from him in disgust until she was pressed up against her ship for her own comfort. The Master’s patronising laugh churned her building anger, her fists clenching as she watched him with her bitter gaze as he acted so coolly.

Disregarding her outburst, he continued, approaching close again. She could never get away that easy, and now she was wedged between him and her own ship like a sandwich. His large hands pressed against her Tardis as he stood, chest to chest with her, looking down into her eyes with such twisted affection.

“I didn’t bring you here to hurt or kill you, _Theta.”_ Using her name was only ever because it made her retreat into herself.

“So why are you doing this, Koschei? What for, to get in my head?”

“Because I’ve missed you, my dear,” he sighed, “but the latter, I suppose yes.”

She looked down, his eyeline boring into hers was too painful not to break.

The Doctor let out a gasp as fingers pressed against her temple with the utmost tenderness, which clashed tremendously with the images projected into her mind.

_The screams of Gallifrey, fire and smoke, buildings toppling over and being consumed by the crimson of climbing flames. His laugh, his haunting laugh, blanketing everything she was being forced to see. Forced, and yet, she couldn’t pull away._

_Her chest tightened when she saw daleks, thousands of them, destroying her beloved home that she’d saved from them once before. The horror written on the faces of people she knew, who’d been lulled into a feeling of safety and security when saved and hidden in a bubble universe, only to have it stripped from them._

_The Daleks came in their many through what looked like a forcefield of some kind, looked like glowing red panes pressed together, hexagonally shaped. None other than the Master’s work. He’d trapped them in and sadistically revelled in watching them burn until all that was left of his race was ash and bone. The innocent, even children, made to perish._

_Carnage. That’s the word he’d used when she faced him on the Eiffel tower that night, and nothing could describe it better._

The physical and telepathic link was broken when her already bloodied fist connected with his face, with such force that it sent him falling onto his knees in the dry Skaro dirt. Dark eyes looked up at her, and his face slowly contorted as he broke out into laughter, clambering to his feet while blood trickled from his nose and down over his split lip.

Daleks moved forward simultaneously, presumably to come to their Master’s defence, which made the Doctor recoil slightly. Her old friend lifted a hand to signal that they stop, cease any kind of attack in response to her outburst against him. He’d somehow taken control of them, she wasn’t sure how, but there was a mutual understanding that he was capable of anything really.

“And that,” he began, sniffling as he wiped blood away with his purple sleeve, “ _that_ , is _my_ Theta.”

His arm wrapped around her waist possessively, she felt as if her legs were going to give out from under her, so in the most humiliating way she allowed him to hold her like that. At the same time, it was repulsive, the way he spoke like she was his. She was, of course, but that was beside the point.

“Don’t you see, my dear? That’s who you are, really. Deep down, in your hearts, you find pleasure in control, in inflicting pain. The truth is, every time you refuse to kill an enemy and pretend its moral, you know that really, you do it to torture them. You _want_ them to suffer. That’s why you sold me out in Paris to the Nazis, you awful awful monster. And why you let the Kasaavin take me.” He laughed spitefully. “You just needed reminding, that you and I, we aren’t so different, angel. I think out of the two of us, you were first to kill. You remember it now, don’t you? Torvic, you’d forgot about him, hmm? The difference is, I never did. And it felt good, didn’t it, Theta? To watch him die at your hands. _It felt good._ ”

Closing her eyes, she turned her head away from him as he broke her down, but his hand grabbing her face yanked it back to face him, fingers digging into her cheeks.

“Theta… My love. The Doctor was always just a creation born from your guilt. That’s all she ever was. A false persona, a punishment you forced yourself to live out. Let her go, it’s time.”

“No,” The Doctor’s eyes fluttered open, unconvincingly wriggling in his grip, “we are not the same. What I did. Everything I’ve had to do, I had no choice!”

“And do you think I did, Theta? Giving the Timelords what they fucking deserved, when I’d given them so much, you truly think I did it all just for kicks? They lied to us, you and me. I did what had to be done, just as you did all those years ago. The real cruelty was in saving them, oh how satisfying to take it all away,” he said, his voice hushed and breathy, it sent chills through her.

Angrily, she spat at his face, in an attempt to dishonour him. His soft chuckle made her writhe, he always made her feel so small and she loathed him for it. Fingers dug more into her cheeks, eliciting a squeak of pain from the back of the throat, and she hated how it made her smile.

His lips pressed against hers coarsely, shoving her further back against the Tardis so that their bodies were flattened against each other. It was rough and fervent, a disarray of tongue and the metallic taste of blood, salty tears and hot passion. There was hatred there, and so much love.

“Imagine us together, how powerful we could be,” he breathed, swollen lips brushing her own as he spoke with such yearning for her.

“Master, look at what you’re doing. We can go back, we can save Gallifrey, we can-“

“No, dear,” he sighed, chuckling condescendingly, “to keep changing the fate of Gallifrey, it would destroy the time streams, you know this. What’s done is done now, what _both_ of us have done.”

“Don’t.” She seethed, wishing she had the guts to push him off her, wishing she didn’t want to grab him by his hair and kiss him again.

“You know I’m right, my darling Theta. Remember what we said, when we were younger? We were going to change the universe, you and I. Our friends, too, but the truth is we never really needed them. You have so much potential. Let me use it, let me make you a God. Because that’s what we are now, you and me. So join me, _for old time’s sake, Doctor_.”

She felt weak, fragile, and he could see right through her with such ease, it was painful.

Lips found hers again, so much gentler this time, and the hand on her cheek crept upwards. She was distracted, melting into him while he kissed her, it transported her to when they were young and free out in the red pastures of their homeland.

_He’d always kissed her so tenderly, like she’d break if he touched her too hard. Theta, his Theta, his world. They used to lay for hours under the glowing light of the Gallifreyan moons, behind the Academy in their secret place, entangled in each other’s limbs and tongues while time passed them by._

_“We’ll be unstoppable one day,” she’d muttered contently against his neck where lovebites were carefully placed, eliciting small, breathy moans from him._

_“The universe will be ours,” he sighed, hands tangled in her hair, “when all this is over, I can’t wait to steal a Tardis, steal you, run away together. No one will be there to tell us what to be, what to do. Just us, in our box, going everywhere.”_

_“Mmm,” she’d hummed against his skin, preoccupied, “going everywhere. Until then, for now, I’m going down on you.”_

_“Real smooth, angel,” he’d laughed, looking at her through lust glazed eyes while her hands wandered to his belt, a grin on her face._

Their kiss broke apart when she fell limp in his arms, and he caught her. While she’d been caught off guard, he’d wormed his way back into her head effortlessly, shaken things around and used her anger and guilt against her. Their telepathy had always been strong ever since the Academy, and he knew his way around the maze that was her brain like the back of his hand.

Every time he spoke of killing the Doctor, he didn’t mean so literally. He wanted his Theta back, that was all, and **the Doctor wasn’t her**. 

“Ah, haven’t lost it,” he grinned proudly, holding her in his arms, “hypnotism through telepathy, its easy when they’re so in love..."

He looked at her fondly, "The universe is ours now, Theta. Just like we said. _Ours_ , my angel.”


End file.
